How to Maximize Affiliate Performance Through Optimization Best Practices

Editor’s Note: We bring you more live coverage from the Affiliate Management Days conference. This series of articles is on topics of interest to businesses that offer affiliate programs.

This session was conducted by Sarah Bundy of All Inclusive Marketing.

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What is affiliate program optimization?

Essentially, it is incremental growth. Affiliate managers want to see incremental growth within their programs. Below are main program optimization techniques that should be implemented in order to see desired growth in your affiliate program.

What KPI’s impact incremental growth?

Here are the main KPI’s that should be actively reviewed and monitored:

# of new affiliates

# of click active affiliates

# of sale active affiliates

Total traffic/clicks

Impressions

Conversion rates

AOV

# of new placements

How else can an affiliate program be optimized? You have to build the right team that can support all the main functions of an affiliate program. You will need:

A dedicated account manager who is passionate about brand, with a focus on affiliate relationships and incremental value as well as a publisher recruitment team that is focused on finding content and social influencers who drive incremental value.

Have a strategic commission structure. Here are examples of how to segment:

Type of affiliate (blogger, coupon, Cashback, Social Influencer)

Affiliate actions / conversion pathways (link type)

Attribution (introducer, assist, closer)

New to file customers vs. returning customers

Product types / categories

Properly segment and tag affiliates within the program. Three ways to do this include:

Affiliate managers must understand and leverage multi-channel and intra-affiliate attribution plus understand buyer behaviors and multi-device opportunities in order to be able to optimize program effectively. Additional ways to optimize include:

Test offers/content for audiences:

Products/categories

Free shipping vs $5 off

% off vs. $ off

Bundling

Reviews vs. testimonials

“Snackable” material vs. article marketing

Creative type (banner vs video vs imagery)

Test offers / content offers for affiliates:

Activation incentives

Performance incentives

Placement incentives

Product/category types

Content type

Creative types

Tiered/hybrid commission payouts

A/B Test landing pages:

By affiliate type

By content type

By offer type

Different combinations

Remove leaks

Communicate with you affiliates:

Segmented newsletters

Engage in social channels

Facetime at events

Gifts/thanks/shout outs

Pick up the phone

Listen and then execute

Earn placements:

Homepage

Category page

Product page

Newsletters

Social channels

Blog/editorial features

Co-branded landing pages

In-app

A critical piece of information is to know your affiliate network/tracking platform capabilities. Do not be so fast to jump on multiple networks. Approximately only 20%-30% of tools on current network are used and are used correctly. Maximize your current efforts and then think about expansion

Remain compliant to stay profitable:

FTC regulations

Affiliate Program TOS

TM and TM+ Protection

Brand reputation management

Click fraud/ cookie stuffing

Coupon abuse

Toolbars, browser extensions

Recruitment is still optimization:

Group High

5IQ

Similar Web

Ninja Outreach

Industry publication

Industry forums

Network options

Key influencers

There are numerous ways to optimize an affiliate program and many programs fail to utilize most, if any of the techniques mentioned above. If you are having trouble implementing any of the optimization techniques do not be afraid to hire a professional with experience in the space.